European carriers are dissatisfied with the Nokia Lumia phones, Reuters has found out. According to the carriers, the Lumia phones are simply "not good enough" to compete with the iPhone and Android phones. Nobody comes into stores asking for windows phones, and one carrier executive said "if the Lumia with the same hardware came with Android in it and not Windows, it would be much easier to sell". Ouch.

Ummm... your example proves the exact opposite. Apple had no presence in the mobile phone market, but then they came out with a fantastic product, and people bought it. That is why they are so profitable now and command such high margins.

I'm not arguing the merits of the product -- I don't own an Android or Lumia device -- I'm just stating that to negate the role of the channel is way too simple, and that was what blue_fox' post was about.

Obviously Apple did everything (business wise) right. They (and they alone) indeed make a very decent profit. No arguments there.

The position the carriers now take is to quote blue_fox 'corporate whining'. If they are not willing to invest in selling competing products and developing new markets, they will end up in the same position as many Apple Premium Resellers now find themselves, that is selling a desired premium product, but not earning a penny from it.

The channel is important, but you are committing the same mistake that MS has doing so far: phone carriers don't make a life out of selling phones.

They don't care about margins when selling it, and indeed, THEY LOSE MONEY SELLING IT (or just severely reduces or nullify their margins) in exchange for long term gains from fidelity contracts with customers.

These contracts are the integral part of the carrier's real product: phone plans. In particular now, data plans.

Carriers don't give a dime if the smartphones have a single OS, or 1000 different OSs. They just play on top of the customer fetish for the "latest and greatest gadget" to push their real product forward, so the customer can pay them for decades to use the said gadget.

Its the manufacturer's burden to make the customer desire their own product to a point that carriers try to get exclusive contracts with you.

So the chances that carriers ends up like these "Apple Premium Resellers" is zero. They are not in the same market. Carriers always profits, and is a delusion to think that manufacturers have any real power against them.

If they are not willing to invest in selling competing products and developing new markets, they will end up in the same position as many Apple Premium Resellers now find themselves, that is selling a desired premium product, but not earning a penny from it.

Thing is that they already have good competition in their stores. They like it. And the competition is not just iPhone vs Android. It's iPhone, Samsung, Sony, LG, HTC, Blackberry, ZTE, Huawei and even Nokia

In addition, they don't really care if they make much money from sale of individual devices. Their prices are higher only to make sure that devices are acquired by people signing contracts. Because their income is mainly via services, not device sales. That is why Apple can charge the operators $100+ more for the device than the off contract price.

Also, Google pays off the operators for Google Play(former Android Market) transactions. Not sure about Microsoft.